CS4W: Welcome, Jessica, and thank you for joining us! Please tell us about Bullies, Bastards & Bitches; How to Write the Bad Guys of Fiction.
Thanks so much Sandy . I wrote this book because every year I meet hundreds, or perhaps thousands of writers through the workshops I teach, at writing conferences around North America , and working with writers as a developmental editor. What I notice is that writers hear lots of advice from many sources, some good, some bad, some outdated. I wanted to update information on creating characters. I especially want to urge writers to take risks with creating characters and that not all leading characters need to likeable or story people the readers can relate to. Writers need to notice that these days often anti-heroes star in stories, especially in television series as in cop shows, The Sopranos, House, and that anti-heroes can sometimes be more reflective of the times we live in. This book is also meant to show that you cannot so easily divide characters into good and evil and that not all stories need tidy Hollywood endings.
CS4W: You cover everything a writer should know about writing bad guys! Where did you come up with the idea for this book? How long did it take to complete?
As I mentioned, I teach at writing conferences and this book was first a conference workshop. I heard such great feedback from the writers in the audience that it convinced me that there was a need for a book about the topic. I started writing the book in June of 2006 and starting sending chapters to my editor at Writer’s Digest Books in the fall of that year. I finished it by June of 2007 and then spent about four months rewriting it, incorporating suggestions from my editor, Kelly Nickell.
CS4W: What type of research was required to delve into the minds of the various types of bad guys discussed in the book?
You know, mostly I read a lot of fiction while writing the book—about 150 novels and I mulled over various character arcs and the techniques that the authors had put to use. The more I read, the more key concepts kept occurring to me. For example, I wanted writers to understand that at least one character in a story must somehow be vulnerable and that vulnerability activates the reader’s emotions. I also researched the characteristics of sociopaths and am particularly grateful for the insights found in Martha Stout’s The Sociopath NextDoor and the work of Dr. Robert Hare.
CS4W: When creating a villain, what are three vital qualities they should possess?
Well, there’s a vast range of villain types—some are super villains as in the Voldemort mold, some are murderers, some are sociopaths. All must be out to harm the protagonist, all must be fascinating, all must have plausible motivations, and all must be complex. The villain and protagonist, who might or might or might not be a hero, must be well matched, and the outcome of their dustup should always be in doubt. Too often writers create cookie-cutter villains that simply exist as an evil force in the story, but readers never learn why they’re evil, how they came to be evil, why they want what they want.
CS4W: Not all villains are male. The “bitches” section of your book focuses on dangerous women. What are some characteristics an author should use to make a compelling bad girl?
Bad girls should always be rule breakers and must possess some kind of power. It can be intellect, sexual power, a driving ambition—but it must always somehow upset the order of the story world. This will always create tension and unease because there is still a huge expectation in our culture that women are the gentler sex, that women have children and home at the top of their priorities. As we’ve seen in the 2008 presidential election that raised a lot of issues about race and gender, that many people have mixed feelings about women who wield power. We’ve seen too in this election cycle that powerful women can be seen as shrill and ball busting, while men who wield power are virile and exciting. Or that women who wear pants suits are more threatening and less feminine than women who wear skirts. So there is still a lot of gender bias and unease in real life and you should capitalize on this in your stories.
CS4W: You also talk about the sympathy aspect of a villain. Can you please explain a little about this ?
When I’m talking about sympathy I don’t mean that readers will feel sorry for the bad ass and want to bring him home like a stray dog. It means that the reader comes to understand him or her. So you’ll want to explore the villain’s past and have a deep knowledge of how he was shaped, how his morals have become warped, how his soul has become so tarnished. If you don’t know the villain’s backstory, he just might come off as thin and contrived. Most villains are made, not born. If he was torturing cats when he was a kid, then he’s more plausible and frightening.
If you create a sympathetic villain—one the reader comes to understand---the reader will react with more complexity and mixed feelings to his actions. In my book I used Thomas Harris’ villain Francis Dolarhyde from Red Dragon as an example. He was born with a cleft palate, was abandoned by his mother, and raised by his crazed grandmother. As you read the book you don’t necessarily hate him, you hate and fear what he has become.
You’ll also explore the villain’s desires—he might long for power, acceptance, or fame—perhaps desires similar to the protagonist in the story. While a villain may be sympathetically drawn because you’ve created him as multi-dimensional and included his backstory, his goals won’t be sympathetic because they are usually immoral. We fear villains for all sorts of reasons, but mostly because they’re so different from us. They’ll pull the trigger and gun down an adversary while we would be shaking with fear over the horror of taking a human life.
In this chapter in BBB I also explained that in order to write about evil people you need a fairly sophisticated understanding of human nature and psychology. You need to understand developmental stages and emotions and mental illness if you’re using it in your story. Too often writers create simplistic characters, or they create a sociopath without understanding the key traits of this type. Or their characters simply don’t have enough intricacy or nuance.
CS4W: What should a writer take into consideration when naming a bad guy?
All parts of fiction and all types of writing must resonate. By this I mean it should create layers of meaning and be felt deeply by the reader. In my book I mention how Dean Koontz used Datura as the name for his female character in Forever Odd. She’s a kinky vixen, she’s power mad, she’s heartless and cruel. Datura has layers of meaning—it’s the name of a flowering plant and the plant and its properties are found in myths and legends around world. There are several species and it’s also called Devil’s Apple, Devil’s Trumpet, Angel’s Trumpet, and Moon Flower. Datura’s properties can be used for medicinal purposes, especially since it’s strongly narcotic. The flowers have a hypnotic fragrance, but can be hallucinogenic and in certain doses, poisonous or deadly. Now, if the character was named Susan, she wouldn’t have the same potency.
CS4W: I really like how Bullies, Bastards & Bitches flows. How did you decide on the breakdown of the chapters?
I had most of the main ideas for the chapters figured out when I wrote the book proposal. As a teacher and editor I’ve been paying attention to these topics for years and had been sort of itching to put all my ideas into a single place. Several of the chapters I wrote for the first draft were dropped because they weren’t specific enough to the topic, or had been covered in other Writer’s Digest books. During the editing phase, Kelly Nickell my editor helped me move some of the concepts around and change the order of the chapters so the whole had more flow.
Since some of the terms in fiction are bandied about without accuracy, I wanted to make sure that readers understood the various types of protagonists and antagonists and the exact role they play in your stories. It seems to me that sometimes writers don’t understand story types, such as anti-heroes and why they can both star in your story, but can have a morality more similar to a villain than a hero. So the order of the chapters became really important as we crafted the final draft.
CS4W: Please tell us about the list of questions you have at the end of the book.
Hhmm. Well these questions come back to the idea of deeply knowing your characters. It’s been my experience that most writers have great ideas for a short story or novel. However, they often falter in their understanding of fictional structure and they often simply don’t know enough about their characters. It seems to me that there are two types of writers—those that outline, and those that don’t. No matter which camp you fall into, you might want to spend some time creating a biography of your main characters before you begin or as you write the first chapters. Now, you won’t necessarily need to use everything in your character’s bio in the story, but this knowledge lends confidence and helps create a consistency in your characters.
CS4W: Who are some of your favorite bad guys or bad girls? What made them memorable?
I have so many—many of them I noted in the book in examples or in the various Rogue’s Galleries that I included. Barbara Covett in Notes on a Scandal is one of my favorite all-time characters, and the screenplay and Judy Dench’s depiction of her in the movie were simply brilliant. As I mentioned in my book, I’m crazy about George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire fantasy series. I’d never read much fantasy before and have enormous respect for him as a writer. He has created a panoply of heroes, anti-heroes, secondary characters and villains so quirky, and true and dastardly that they will linger in your imagination for years after reading them. His characters also have arcs that twist and turn and shift, so the whole is delicious and surprising. He kills off your favorite characters so no one if safe and the whole is delightfully suspenseful and disturbing.
CS4W: In 2009, Dear Bad Writer : A Compassionate Guide for Avoiding Rejection , will be available. Please tell us about this book and what inspired you to write it.
Well, first Tarcher has changed the title because they were concerned that writers wouldn’t identify themselves as bad writers. The title was meant to be funny and attention-getting. The new title is THANKS, BUT THIS ISN’T FOR US: The compassionate Guide to Understanding What’s Wrong with Your Writing and Leaving the Rejection Pile for Good. The new title is a mouthful, but the book is based on the fact that too often writers simply break my heart. As an editor or in leading critique groups I’ve read many manuscripts that the writer has slaved over for years, but that simply don’t work for all sorts of reasons. I’m trying to explain the most common mistakes I see that doom your manuscript. For example there’s a chapter about dialogue, another one about structure, since many writers are familiar with the three-act structure or that most novels require a mid-point reversal. So it’s that sort of information and because alas, it seems to me that many people are typing, not writing. It also will contain things I’ve been longing to tell writers for years but diplomacy has not allowed me to. But it also comes from a compassionate perspective because I make mistakes every day as a writer and I have enormous respect for anyone trying to write fiction. I’m trying to make it funny, because many blunders I spot in manuscript are fairly absurd and it seems that it’s better to laugh at our mistakes and move on, instead of crying over them. And it also has some basic, timeless advice such as many writers need to spend more thought on their stories, need to learn more about craft.
CS4W: You’ve been teaching, editing and coaching writers since 1991. Please tell us about your web site, The Writing Life .
My web site has recently been redesigned by a talented woman in the Seattle area. It is evolving at this time and new content will be up in the coming months. I mostly want people to know about my books, know that I’m a reliable resource for information about writing, and that they can contact me to receive a newsletter about writing that I send out monthly via email. It also connects to my blog which I write with varying regularity.
CS4W: In parting, what writing advice would you like to share with our readers?
When you read, analyze what published writers are doing and why. So you’re reading like a writer, always asking yourself how you can employ similar techniques in your own stories. Also, most writing that I see lacks subtlety and nuance. Trust that the reader is your partner in your enterprise. Everything doesn’t need to explained or told, and certainly not repeated.
CS4W: Thank you so much, Jessica! I love Bullies, Bastards & Bitches! I have both a bad guy and a bad girl in the story I’m working on now and your book really helped me to delve deep into their characters and make them more compelling and believable. I appreciate you taking the time to be with us and I wish you much success!
Sandy —thanks so much for reading my book and I want to wish the writers who visit your site good luck with their projects and getting published.
Jessica Page Morrell believes that writers need solid and concise information that they can immediately put to use, proven strategies to jump start their careers, and inspiration to keep going when a manuscript bogs down. Her workshops aim to increase a writer's chances of getting published; suggest ways of succeeding at the writing life; ignite creativity; and help writers navigate the evolving marketplace.
Since she began teaching writers in 1991 and editing in 1995, many of her students and clients have gone on to publish their work. Her workshops are lively, focused, and filled with practical insights. Her classes and workshops have been offered through writing conferences, college programs, through her own venue, and on-line at iVillage.com. While serving as the Writing Expert at iVillage.com, one of the world's largest and most influential web sites, her content was voted by Writer's Digest as one of 101 Best Sites for Writers.
Workshop and writing conference participants have described her as: "a torrent of information," "lots of practical information with excellent concrete examples," and "Absolutely everything she says is packed with value." She also teaches at corporations and speaks for writers groups and various conferences around the country.
She is the author of Between the Lines: master the subtler aspects of writing fiction published by Writer's Digest Books, The I Ching Writer's Companion with coauthor Elaura Niles published by Running Press in September 2006, and Writing Out the Storm, Collectors Press and four booklets on writing. Jessica's newest work is Bullies, Bastards, and Bitches - How to write the bad guys in fiction.
Morrell works as writing coach and freelance editor and book doctor. She's been writing a monthly column about topics related to writing which currently appears in The Willamette Writer, writes a monthly newsletter, The Writing Life, a web log (BLOG), thewritinglifetoo.blogspot.com and contributes articles to on-line sites, newspapers, and public radio.
